Justifying adventuring when you're the Boss

[Haltherrion]

When I last ran a conquest/leadership campaign, the King PC was indeed at the head of his army. But that involved a bunch of regular adventurey type encounters, albeit set against a backdrop of tens of thousands. The actual 'encounters' focused on the King and his immediate vicinity as he eg stormed the walls of the enemy Citadel of Jrebb, slew an enemy monster (Grey Render), fought through the Citadel, took on the enemy leader Evil High Priest Cavarnhissern in his lair, and rescued the princess - his future bride - and the other young royal hostages of what would soon be his client kingdoms.

That's certainly a way to handle it and sounds like it worked fine.

How did it work in your game group having one person be the king and the others lower ranked, I assume?


While I haven't done for so long a time that I can't really remember how it went, I've played in a few games where the ref has singled out one player as special (required for a prophecy in most cases). It worked fine in the sense that there was no strife among the players caused by it but it did have some game awkwardness:

• In this case, the special PC was required to save the land from some great evil. Which, since all PCs were completely commited to this cause, meant that in-character, it made sense to disproportionately award the special character loot to make him as safe and strong as possible. If he died, all was lost. If the rest of us died, it wasn't quite so serious (unless it then led to his deat of course). You can get that to a lesser extent with a king.
• It was awkward for the referee as he juggled the need to service the situation he had set up versus the need to execute a game that was reasonably equitable to the players. This ranged from the quandary of "if I kill this PC, my entire campaign arc is over" to "if the special PC is so important, it seems the bad guys need to be more focused on bumping this PC off."

He pulled it off fairly well twice but it also required some cooperative suspension of disbelief on the players to enable this campaign. While I think he still likes the feel of this campaign, he hasn't tried it again in some years, either

 

[SKyOdin]

When Beowulf became a king, he still went out to slay the dragon that threatened his kingdom by himself. Various King Arthur legends involved Arthur going off himself to slay giants and the like. Heck, Odysseus was a king, and that didn't stop him from going on a very, very long adventure (albeit not one he intended).

Really, as long as a ruler checks in at home on a semi-regular basis to make sure things are running well, I see no reason they can't be involved in adventures, particularly if the adventures involve eliminating threats to their kingdom. As for why the king would go out on an adventure instead of sending someone else to do it, the best answer is that there is no one else more qualified for the job. You don't send your subordinates out to fight a dragon, they would just end up dragon chow.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1. Make the king bored. If he asks "what duties do I fulfil today", you can reply "well, basically you laze about doing nothing: your administrators are capable, competent and loyal".

2. Keep bringing news of horrid things happening on the frontier. Emphasise that any news is at least a couple of weeks old. Make sure there's an obvious solution (to your players) that wasn't taken by the local forces due to lack of authority. "It sounds like the 3rd legion have gone rogue. The local burger is asking for dispensation to pay their wages from his dam building fund while delays in the supply lines are resolved, but that was quite a while ago, and the legion were already getting restless then...."

3. Paint any potential leader he might send to fix the problem as inadequate (ie - "Well, the last time there was a bandit problem like this, we sent Duke Fortense. Wiped the whole county off the map. Brilliant tactician".

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

So, first, it can be fun to run a game where the PCs run things from the center, and others do the actual fighting. But assuming you don't like that idea, some ideas (some of which are repeats from upthread):

(1) The PC might acquire a bonded artifact that needs to be used in the quest. (The Belgariad is a great example of this plot device).

(2) If a player wants their PC to stick around in the middle of civilization but the adventure is over there, then their PC is semi-retired and they should generate and play the lieutenant who gets sent there.

(3) Sometimes, when you send the lower level flunkies, you get back a failure and a bunch of corpses. That should hopefully motivate the PC to go deal, especially if the PC is the highest level character in the colony. If they keep sending waves of adventurers, make it clear that they're (a) wiping out the talented midlevel bench and (b) destroying morale and loyalty. With luck, they'll go and deal.
(a) You could combine this with adventures that the flunkies can deal with to make it more satisfying/more realistic. So for example, you could mention the pirates to the east, the undead problems around the old burial grounds to the west and the newly discovered expansionist group of giants to the south. When the groups sent east and west come back covered in glory and treasure, and the group to the south doesn't come back at all, a heroic PC will likely decide its time to buckle on the old sword and head south.

(4) Make sure that the in-game incentives align with the behavior you want. If you want the PC to go adventuring all the time, they shouldn't get xp for staying home. If when the PC goes off on an adventure, problems erupt in the colony, that discourages them from going on adventures in the future.

(5) To the extent that the PC is saying "I want to go adventuring, but I'm the mayor, that would be irresponsible" make sure that they have a good deputy (could be a spouse, could be their heir-apparent, could be an appointed deputy) who can take over in their stead. The more they can trust their right-hand person, the less it should hold them in position.

(6) Talk to the players out of game about the issue and your concerns.

 

[S'mon]

That's certainly a way to handle it and sounds like it worked fine.

How did it work in your game group having one person be the king and the others lower ranked, I assume?

Several of the PCs ended up with their own domains. My description above was of a solo adventure with King Sigurd Ravneskjold, but King Sigurd fought alongside fellow PC Warmaster Xiang, ruler of Mount Fire, in the defense of Scorn'el against the Mongali Horde.

I have to say that when GMing for very high level PCs, solo or very small group adventures have been the norm. The players and campaign(s) tend to drift apart at that level.

 

[coyote6]

Like others have said: the PC needs some trustworthy and competent deputies that can be relied on to keep things running while the PC is away. The PC needs to have missions suitable largely for them. It helps if the PC's temperament is conducive to him going; for a paladin, it would help if he's a proactive kind of guy, who wants to go out and punch evil in the face first, rather than a protective type (who wants to stay and watch over his people). If the PC's not got the right personality, then maybe explore ways in which the PC might change to make it work (e.g., sends a friend to do something, friend gets slaughtered; messenger from his deity shows up and says, "Dude, get out and smite some evil, already. They got this covered").

Or, go troupe-style, and let the PC have a free cohort -- with the provision that the cohort & PC never get played at the same time. The cohort can either be Mr. Competent Manager & Defender, and stay at home while the main character goes off to adventure; or he can be the adventurer, dispatched to shoot trouble while the paladin stays at home. Or they can mix it up.

Another thing -- as GM, you have to be careful not to have something horrible happen at home while the PC leader is away; if that happens, it means he was right the first time, and should have never left (and don't expect him, or any other leader PC, to leave their responsibilityany time soon). I mean, you could eventually have something bad happen -- but I wouldn't do it the first time the PCs leave home, wouldn't do it often, and would try to make it something that the PCs couldn't have stopped even if they'd been there.